5 ms·

An Elegy for the Landline in Literature

16 points by tintinnabula 6y ago

neonate 6y ago
https://archive.is/Cm90Y https://archive.is/Cm90Y
ghaff 6y ago
There are so many examples. In SF many of Connie Willis' stories revolved around constantly missed connections as someone ran around trying to find someone else. The film Play It Again Sam had a running gag in which one of the characters was constantly calling and giving a phone number about where he was at the moment. Anything written today that depends on a "missed connection" has to explain why someone couldn't just make a cell call (or otherwise do a search and reach someone).
- brazzy 6y ago
  I think I've seen it pointed out several times how absolutely bizarre the use of landlines and lack of cell phones is to young readers of Neuromancer - even leaving them wondering whether there is some deeper meaning behind that.
  - bitwize 6y ago
    I remember Max Headroom successfully predicting video telecommunications, but it resembled a 1980s telephone with a screen. There were even "View-Phone" booths on street corners. Also -- CRTs everywhere. Some of this was probably deliberate; the show depicted computer consoles with ancient purely-mechanical typewriters. But still, I interpret the tagline "Twenty minutes into the future" as something of a disclaimer.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      Dick Tracy wrist radio (and Star Trek communicator) notwithstanding, fiction didn't really broadly embrace ubiquitous communications. I suspect part of the reason is that, as the article notes, a lot of fiction uses control of information flows as an important part of plot construction. And, as you note, video phones were pretty universally envisioned as landline plus screen. As with many things, video has of course evolved much more organically. Initially primarily on mobile and, of course, it's exploded on notebooks/desktops in the current situation.
    - at-fates-hands 6y ago
      I have a 1986 Playboy and in the "Tech Section" there is a image of a "video phone" which was basically a landline phone setup with a tiny 5" B&W screen with an image of the person you were talking to and it was hailed as the future of communications. Behold, the Luma Telecom Video Telephone: Looks like a press release from 1986: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/04/22/Luma-Telecom-Inc-has-broken-through-the-high-cost-barrier/4751514530000/ https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/04/22/Luma-Telecom-Inc-has... If you wanted some pics: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-mitsubishi-luma-video-phone-works https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-mitsubishi-lu... https://www.flickr.com/photos/fujipc/4578540563 https://www.flickr.com/photos/fujipc/4578540563
      - rsynnott 6y ago
        Even weirder, things like this were still being marketed this century: https://www.theregister.com/2004/09/15/amstrad_e3_launch/ https://www.theregister.com/2004/09/15/amstrad_e3_launch/
        brazzy 6y ago
        Well, that was 3 years before the launch of the iPhone. It totally made sense at that time.
      - ghaff 6y ago
        There was a picturephone booth demonstration at the 1964 world's fair: https://ethw.org/Picturephone https://ethw.org/Picturephone
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- KineticLensman 6y ago
  Other stories where a mobile phone would have saved the day: (spoilers) Romeo and Juliet (Juliet can't tell Romeo she has faked her death) Assault on Precinct 13 (rioters cut phonelines to a besieged police station) The opening credits for Terry and June [0] (they are looking for each other in the same shopping centre) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_and_June https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_and_June
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
gumby 6y ago
I read an article a few years ago about how authors have had to restructure stories because so many plots have hinged around people being out of touch except when at known locations. A lot of mystery/misunderstanding of plots (think: PG Wodehouse) no longer works. I was struck by this article (within the last decade) as mobile phones and texting have been ubiquitous since the mid 90s (early 00s in the US). Funny that popular literature took a while to catch up. Detective stories survive this the best (nothing is “real-time”) and historical fiction (no phones in Ancient Rome). Ironically this traces a thread of literature. “The Moonstone” by Wilkie Collins was the first mystery story and also the first technologically “modern” story as it was the first in which people could telegraph to London and have a detective arrive by train later in the day! Still a great novel even though Collins has gone from the height of fame (Far more more famous than his contemporary Dickens) to obscurity today. Like the telegraph and landline.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  > I was struck by this article (within the last decade) as mobile phones and texting have been ubiquitous since the mid 90s (early 00s in the US). Funny that popular literature took a while to catch up. TV writers, too. Kramer had a mobile phone in an episode of Seinfeld (the one were people think he's a phone movie information service), and Jerry had a carphone for most of it. But these were only used for specific gags; in general it was assumed that if someone wasn't at home they were uncontactable and the existence of the mobile phones, after being established, was ignored.
- sophacles 6y ago
  > I was struck by this article (within the last decade) as mobile phones and texting have been ubiquitous since the mid 90s (early 00s in the US). Funny that popular literature took a while to catch up. I've mused about this a bit myself, it's and interesting topic. I've never reached a conclusion, but some of the factors I consider to be important: * The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed. (william gibson) There are many people my age (40) who didn't really have cell phones until the last 10-15 years. It's like cord-cutting: I haven't had cable in 20 years, neither have many of my tech friends, but a lot of folks seem to have only caught on en mass in the last few years. Similarly cell phone usage being ubiquitous in my techy peer group may not represent everyone, true ubiquity may be much newer. * Related to the above, there's the tech phase in period. Once cell phones became ubiquitous, it's not like it instantly changed the habits and modes of thinking of those folks immediately. Between the limited number of talk minutes back in the old days, and the true ubiquity of landlines, cell phones were seen as an accessory, a secondary communication method. This still remains true institionally: you'll find lots of forms that ask about landline vs cell, or assume landline is the primary phone number, etc. This also includes the notion of: we had to figure out how to use this tech. I don't mean it in the way of "how do i press the right buttons" but rather "what's the socially correct way to use this thing?" Is it OK to take a call in public? What's the expected response window for a txt? How does that prioritize with calls? What is polite on txt (which used to have a 140char limit per message that cost $.05 to send), and so on. * There's some form of inertia involved. The telephone changed details, but not the fundamental idea that a person's reachability was tied to location. I mean, a telephone number went to a phone in a specific room (not strictly true, but close enough). Until the cell phone, this had been true forever, so millenia of story structure and concepts are built around it. Everyone was (and honestly still is) used to the idea and had built a lot of understanding around it. That understanding takes a little while to change, and if it's the only thing you've ever known, it may take a long while. Conversely, writers who grew up with mobile as the primary communication method and understand it as a core idea are only just now getting to the point where they are able to produce good stuff - there's still the learning/experience curve for writing. I think that last point could be rewritten pithily as: write what you know. * Finally, since story structure that has existed forever is broken by cell phones - it's possible that writers just needed to observe the world a bit to see how the conflicts changed as a result. Sometimes it can be fixed by patches "oh we can't do a search here, they have cell phones"... becomes "oh the battery is dead, do a search!". Other times the structure is just broken and must be abandoned. New structures can probably be invented, but that's hard. Anyway, I don't know if the answers are in the above, but it's a fun topic.
NotGargarin 6y ago
I would say that a smartphone is not quite so reliable as this author seems to think. Batteries and signal fail all the time, for one. The drama that can be created with smartphones is at least as much as that created with a landline. Text messages, for example: what about a message half written and accidentally sent, or the sending of a risky text and seeing a long typing indicator before recieving just "OK", or perhaps an unsent message left to be rediscovered a day or so later, after everything has changed? Or with calls: the embarrassment of realising too late that you're on speaker, or calling a hundred times and hearing only "the number you are calling is not available" (why? Is it no signal, have they turned off their phone?), or even just getting a call from an unknown number, which has all the mystery of a call from a landline. Even caller ID has drama: why are they calling at this hour? Is the person on the phone the same as the caller ID? Social media adds so much, too. Is it Facebook, where you're friends with your parents, or Snapchat, with just your friends? Is it a public post, or a select group? There's so much scope for drama, and we're seeing more and more use of it in modern writing.

16 points by tintinnabula 6y ago

https://archive.is/Cm90Y https://archive.is/Cm90Y

There are so many examples. In SF many of Connie Willis' stories revolved around constantly missed connections as someone ran around trying to find someone else. The film Play It Again Sam had a running gag in which one of the characters was constantly calling and giving a phone number about where he was at the moment. Anything written today that depends on a "missed connection" has to explain why someone couldn't just make a cell call (or otherwise do a search and reach someone).

brazzy 6y ago
I think I've seen it pointed out several times how absolutely bizarre the use of landlines and lack of cell phones is to young readers of Neuromancer - even leaving them wondering whether there is some deeper meaning behind that.
- bitwize 6y ago
  I remember Max Headroom successfully predicting video telecommunications, but it resembled a 1980s telephone with a screen. There were even "View-Phone" booths on street corners. Also -- CRTs everywhere. Some of this was probably deliberate; the show depicted computer consoles with ancient purely-mechanical typewriters. But still, I interpret the tagline "Twenty minutes into the future" as something of a disclaimer.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    Dick Tracy wrist radio (and Star Trek communicator) notwithstanding, fiction didn't really broadly embrace ubiquitous communications. I suspect part of the reason is that, as the article notes, a lot of fiction uses control of information flows as an important part of plot construction. And, as you note, video phones were pretty universally envisioned as landline plus screen. As with many things, video has of course evolved much more organically. Initially primarily on mobile and, of course, it's exploded on notebooks/desktops in the current situation.
  - at-fates-hands 6y ago
    I have a 1986 Playboy and in the "Tech Section" there is a image of a "video phone" which was basically a landline phone setup with a tiny 5" B&W screen with an image of the person you were talking to and it was hailed as the future of communications. Behold, the Luma Telecom Video Telephone: Looks like a press release from 1986: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/04/22/Luma-Telecom-Inc-has-broken-through-the-high-cost-barrier/4751514530000/ https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/04/22/Luma-Telecom-Inc-has... If you wanted some pics: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-mitsubishi-luma-video-phone-works https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-mitsubishi-lu... https://www.flickr.com/photos/fujipc/4578540563 https://www.flickr.com/photos/fujipc/4578540563
    - rsynnott 6y ago
      Even weirder, things like this were still being marketed this century: https://www.theregister.com/2004/09/15/amstrad_e3_launch/ https://www.theregister.com/2004/09/15/amstrad_e3_launch/
      - brazzy 6y ago
        Well, that was 3 years before the launch of the iPhone. It totally made sense at that time.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      There was a picturephone booth demonstration at the 1964 world's fair: https://ethw.org/Picturephone https://ethw.org/Picturephone
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
KineticLensman 6y ago
Other stories where a mobile phone would have saved the day: (spoilers) Romeo and Juliet (Juliet can't tell Romeo she has faked her death) Assault on Precinct 13 (rioters cut phonelines to a besieged police station) The opening credits for Terry and June [0] (they are looking for each other in the same shopping centre) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_and_June https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_and_June

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

gumby 6y ago

I read an article a few years ago about how authors have had to restructure stories because so many plots have hinged around people being out of touch except when at known locations. A lot of mystery/misunderstanding of plots (think: PG Wodehouse) no longer works. I was struck by this article (within the last decade) as mobile phones and texting have been ubiquitous since the mid 90s (early 00s in the US). Funny that popular literature took a while to catch up. Detective stories survive this the best (nothing is “real-time”) and historical fiction (no phones in Ancient Rome). Ironically this traces a thread of literature. “The Moonstone” by Wilkie Collins was the first mystery story and also the first technologically “modern” story as it was the first in which people could telegraph to London and have a detective arrive by train later in the day! Still a great novel even though Collins has gone from the height of fame (Far more more famous than his contemporary Dickens) to obscurity today. Like the telegraph and landline.

rsynnott 6y ago
> I was struck by this article (within the last decade) as mobile phones and texting have been ubiquitous since the mid 90s (early 00s in the US). Funny that popular literature took a while to catch up. TV writers, too. Kramer had a mobile phone in an episode of Seinfeld (the one were people think he's a phone movie information service), and Jerry had a carphone for most of it. But these were only used for specific gags; in general it was assumed that if someone wasn't at home they were uncontactable and the existence of the mobile phones, after being established, was ignored.
sophacles 6y ago
> I was struck by this article (within the last decade) as mobile phones and texting have been ubiquitous since the mid 90s (early 00s in the US). Funny that popular literature took a while to catch up. I've mused about this a bit myself, it's and interesting topic. I've never reached a conclusion, but some of the factors I consider to be important: * The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed. (william gibson) There are many people my age (40) who didn't really have cell phones until the last 10-15 years. It's like cord-cutting: I haven't had cable in 20 years, neither have many of my tech friends, but a lot of folks seem to have only caught on en mass in the last few years. Similarly cell phone usage being ubiquitous in my techy peer group may not represent everyone, true ubiquity may be much newer. * Related to the above, there's the tech phase in period. Once cell phones became ubiquitous, it's not like it instantly changed the habits and modes of thinking of those folks immediately. Between the limited number of talk minutes back in the old days, and the true ubiquity of landlines, cell phones were seen as an accessory, a secondary communication method. This still remains true institionally: you'll find lots of forms that ask about landline vs cell, or assume landline is the primary phone number, etc. This also includes the notion of: we had to figure out how to use this tech. I don't mean it in the way of "how do i press the right buttons" but rather "what's the socially correct way to use this thing?" Is it OK to take a call in public? What's the expected response window for a txt? How does that prioritize with calls? What is polite on txt (which used to have a 140char limit per message that cost $.05 to send), and so on. * There's some form of inertia involved. The telephone changed details, but not the fundamental idea that a person's reachability was tied to location. I mean, a telephone number went to a phone in a specific room (not strictly true, but close enough). Until the cell phone, this had been true forever, so millenia of story structure and concepts are built around it. Everyone was (and honestly still is) used to the idea and had built a lot of understanding around it. That understanding takes a little while to change, and if it's the only thing you've ever known, it may take a long while. Conversely, writers who grew up with mobile as the primary communication method and understand it as a core idea are only just now getting to the point where they are able to produce good stuff - there's still the learning/experience curve for writing. I think that last point could be rewritten pithily as: write what you know. * Finally, since story structure that has existed forever is broken by cell phones - it's possible that writers just needed to observe the world a bit to see how the conflicts changed as a result. Sometimes it can be fixed by patches "oh we can't do a search here, they have cell phones"... becomes "oh the battery is dead, do a search!". Other times the structure is just broken and must be abandoned. New structures can probably be invented, but that's hard. Anyway, I don't know if the answers are in the above, but it's a fun topic.

NotGargarin 6y ago

I would say that a smartphone is not quite so reliable as this author seems to think. Batteries and signal fail all the time, for one. The drama that can be created with smartphones is at least as much as that created with a landline. Text messages, for example: what about a message half written and accidentally sent, or the sending of a risky text and seeing a long typing indicator before recieving just "OK", or perhaps an unsent message left to be rediscovered a day or so later, after everything has changed? Or with calls: the embarrassment of realising too late that you're on speaker, or calling a hundred times and hearing only "the number you are calling is not available" (why? Is it no signal, have they turned off their phone?), or even just getting a call from an unknown number, which has all the mystery of a call from a landline. Even caller ID has drama: why are they calling at this hour? Is the person on the phone the same as the caller ID? Social media adds so much, too. Is it Facebook, where you're friends with your parents, or Snapchat, with just your friends? Is it a public post, or a select group? There's so much scope for drama, and we're seeing more and more use of it in modern writing.